Life can get hectic, especially if you live in a bustling urban center, so we should treat ourselves every now and then with a beneficial and relaxing activity. A singular day at the spa in a span of two months can do wonders for your physical and mental health. However, such outings can be quite expensive, not to mention time-consuming. Therefore, so many people choose to create conditions for a pampering spa treatment in their own home. If you have enough funds for such a project and you think you can benefit from it, here are the basics of creating the perfect spa bathroom.

Begin with the broad strokes

Interior designers are introducing greenery as the next prevalent trend in the bathing areas, and this is an amazing trend to follow if you want to create a spa bathroom. However, this only works if your space has an influx of natural light, which is also something that is not a guarantee if you live in big cities. Still, incorporating eye-catching houseplants into your bathroom will create an invigorating atmosphere that befits a Zen zone.

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Declutter Radically

Stellar nightlife is a big part of why so many people decide to move and work in big cities. However, this also means that their bathroom is usually cluttered with accessories, makeup material, perfumes, and other toiletries. This is simply inexcusable for a legitimate spa zone! So, you need to get rid of all the items that you do not use daily and place them in convenient storage – either in a cabinet outside the bathroom or in a medicine cabinet. If you can, dedicate an entire cabinet or a basket to spa items exclusively.

All The Right Colors

Thankfully, darker bathroom tones are going out of Vogue this year which is an impeccable timing if you want to turn your lavatory into a spa space. Calming tones and bright primary color are the way to go. As a matter of fact, simple white tiling is the best neutral option for spa background. Shades of beige, organic sandstone appeal and stained wood can offer interesting variations to break up the overwhelmingly white and they make a fine aesthetic choice.

The budget for luxury

If your financial backing is good and you are of the opinion that one should spare no expense when it comes to creating a domestic spa area, install a dedicated spa tub and separate it from the “utilitarian” washing space. If you have an ample square footage in your bathroom and you want to take it up a notch, do thorough research in order to discover what makes, for example, the finest swim spas in Sydney. With such an element added to your bathroom, you can practically open a professional spa in your home. See to it that your spa tub is separated from the rest of the bathroom space visually – either make structural adjustments or at least install a divider or a curtain.

If your financial options are limited…

Of course, if you have a frugal budget, you can still create a nice spa space. Who says that Zen bathroom must come at a deluxe price? You just need to adopt the right mindset and do some small changes that go a long way. For example, changing the visual style, decluttering and adding houseplants are all manageable options in economic terms. You can invest in meaningful tweaks such as shower-head upgrade. You can easily find the ones that come with a message mode and a selection of other choices. Multiple settings combined with several shower-head holders for convenient height will do the trick. You can have a relaxing waterfall shower after a short session of high-pressure water-flow massage, and you don’t have to spend a fortune in order to enjoy this.

​A spa is also about scents

Aromatherapy is an integral part of spa treatments. After a long day at work, you can simply relax in your bathtub as the scents of minty plant and essential oils caress your nostrils. They will soothe your body and spirit and acquiring them is a non-issue. For the final touches to your spa bathroom, venture out to shop the most invigorating scents and lotions. Scented candles are also a must for your domestic spa. They are a good interior-design hack that will enhance the effect you want to achieve without too much effort.

Create Mood Lighting

Of course, scented candles can also provide amazing mood lighting befit of the most luxurious spa spaces, but they will not be enough. You will want to achieve a soft glow to each of the light sources in your bathroom, so you can at least purchase the right decorative fixtures and glass coverage that will soften the harsh glare. Adding a mirror or two will expand the space visually and reflect more light in the room, rendering it brighter.

You can create a Zen retreat in your bathroom by yourself, budgetary constraints or not. The trick is to bring it all down to the core features of what renders certain space a spa-inflected environment, so don’t get hung up on gimmicks and expensive appliances! By following a few simple rules and several smart investments, every day can be the day at the spa.

Source: This content is taken from AppraisalNewsCast. It is a famous real estate appraisal blog in USA.

​The world’s largest mortgage insurer can only check for mortgage defects on a “small” number of mortgages due to technological shortcomings and that’s leading to a potential rise in appraisal-related issues.

The Federal Housing Administration has already identified issues in appraisals on reverse mortgages and is taking steps to address those issues, but FHA Commissioner Brian Montgomery told the crowd at the Mortgage Bankers Association 2018 Annual Conference in Washington, D.C., on Monday that the FHA is seeing some things in forward appraisals that give him “pause.”

The FHA is the “largest mortgage insurer in the world,” Montgomery said, but the agency can’t review all of the mortgages it insures because some of its “key” systems are more than 25 years old.

In recent months, the FHA has been looking at “appraisal bias” in its HECM portfolio, recently stating that a review found appraisal issues in 37% of reverse mortgages.

But, according to Montgomery, it’s not just the reverse mortgage portfolio that is being affected by appraisal bias.

“We are seeing things in the forward book that give us pause,” Montgomery said of FHA forward appraisals. Montgomery also said that FHA is “close” to some policy decisions that could affect appraisals and other parts of FHA lending, but did not provide a specific timeline on when those decisions would be announced or what they would be.

Montgomery also discussed the FHA’s role in the administration’s pullback from False Claims Act enforcement, which saw a prodigious rise in the Obama administration.

In recent years, many of the nation’s largest banks moved away from FHA lending, with the Department of Justice accusing a number of lenders of violating the False Claims Act by knowingly originating and underwriting mortgages that did not meet FHA standards.

Under the Obama administration, lenders of various sizes, including some of the nation’s largest, agreed to pay out billions of dollars in settlements under the guise of the False Claims Act.

Those efforts changed the complexion of FHA lending, with depositories like JPMorgan Chase moving away and nonbanks like Quicken Loans filling the gaps.

But the Trump administration has signaled a different way of doing things.

Montgomery said Monday that the FHA has been directed by the Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson to work with DOJ on the False Claims Act, and the FHA is doing that.

Montgomery said that the FHA is talking with the DOJ, adding that he believes FHA needs to an “active participant” in the enforcement process, cautioning that “there will be no room for bad actors” in FHA lending.

Source: Taken from AppraisalNewsCast, which is a real estate news blog.

Builders focusing on more affordable housing.

If you answered San Francisco, you would have been right, that is, if we were talking about home prices. But we’re not.

In terms of new home starts, the Dallas/Ft. Worth area remains the No. 1 market in the country with 35,090 housing starts per year, according to data from Metrostudy, a provider of primary and secondary market information to the housing and related industries.

In fact, its housing starts even continue to grow, jumping 12.1% year-over-year in the second quarter, the data showed. And annual closings soared, rising 20.8% annually, the largest increase since the third quarter of 2013.

Metrostudy explained this increase in closings follows six months of builders delivering affordable homes in the $200,000 to $300,000 range. The median new home price even dropped in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area by 1.7% from last year to $325,400.

​Early this year, Freddie Mac predicted new home sales will be the driving factor of housing growth this year as the market struggles to produce enough inventory for the rising demand for homes.
And now, that market just got a little more affordable as builders concentrate market growth in the more affordable market segments. The chart below shows what percentage of new home starts are built in each price range.

The data further enforces the shifting demand for lower-priced homes.

“As builders and developers push to deliver smaller lots and more affordably priced product, expect the median price to fall,” said Paige Shipp, regional director of Metrostudy’s Dallas-Fort Worth market. “In a market where new and resale price appreciation significantly outpaced wage growth, a lower median price indicates that more homebuyers will be able to afford new homes.”

“The median resale price of $258,000 is 5.7% higher than 2017,” Shipp said. “As the median new home price drops and resale price increases, the delta between new and resale narrows. Currently, the difference between the median resale and new home price is 26.1%. The greatest difference in price was 50% in 2015.”

But this comes at a time when, across the U.S., affordability dropped to a 10-year low due to low mortgage inventory, rising home prices and even Canadian lumber tariffs, according to the latest report from the National Association of Home Builders.

Source: This article is based upon the facts published by AppraisalNewsCast, which is an appraisal blog in USA.

Plus what to expect in world economy’s most important week

​Monday Morning Cup of Coffee takes a look at news coming across HousingWire’s weekend desk, with more coverage to come on larger issues.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development released a plan in April that HUD Secretary Ben Carson says will push millions of low-income households toward self-sufficiency.

Under the current system, Carson explained many low-income earners are discouraged from, or even penalized for, finding higher-paying jobs as they would lose their current benefits and perhaps be worse off than when they earned a lower income.

But HUD’s proposed plan quickly earned criticism as an analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities showed it would raise rates for the poorest Americans by about 20% and would raise the minimum rent from $50 to $150 per month.

However, now it seems Carson is reconsidering that plan. At the Bipartisan Policy Center Friday, he said additional funding from Congress eliminated the immediate need to raise rents.

“The reason we had to consider raising rents at all is because we were dealing with a $41 billion budget,” Carson said. “And in order to be able to keep from raising rents on the elderly and the disabled, and in order to not displace people who are already being taken care of, that was necessary.”

“Now that the budget has been changed, the necessity for doing that is not urgent,” he said.

Much bigger changes could be in store this week as the world economy prepares for its most important week this year.

For starters, Monday morning will show the first look at investors’ opinion of everything that happened at the G-7 summit. Judging by President Donald Trump’s Twitter feed after the summit, it did not go smoothly.

Mortgage Bankers Association President and CEO David Stevens already passed his judgment on the recent events, saying history is watching.
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And U.S. economists still wonder if rising threats of trade wars will threaten the economy, even sending the country into its next recession.

But the G-7 summit isn’t the only thing investors will be watching. This week, Trump will have his historic meeting with North Korea, where he will try to negotiate a peace deal and convince the country to give up its nuclear weapons.

Here in the U.S., the Federal Reserve will meet and is expected to announce an increase to the federal funds rate Wednesday. This will be the second rate hike this year, out of the projected three to four rate hikes for 2018.

Click here to see other major events this week that combine to make it the most important week this year for the world economy.

Over the weekend the St. Louis Fed tweeted out a graph showing how many new homes have been sold in seven price ranges since 2002.

The results are eye-opening. While new homes priced under $150,000 made up a large portion of the market from 2002 to around 2007, the chart below shows the price range has now nearly disappeared entirely.

The story is much the same for homes priced from $150,000 to $199,999. Homes priced between $200,000 to $299,999 decreased slightly.

On the other hand, homes in the $300,000 to $399,999 range, $400,000 to $499,999 range, $500,000 to $749,999 range and the $750,000 and above range all saw a slight increase in new homes sold.

Because there is a higher concentration of homes available in the upper-end markets, first-time homebuyers continue to struggle. A recent study from the National Association of Realtors and realtor.com shows in some markets, first-time homebuyers can only afford about 20% of the housing stock.

Meanwhile, homeowners continue to rejoice as tappable equity surged to its highest dollar amount on record, far surpassing its previous 2005 peak, according to a recent Mortgage Monitor Report from Black Knight.

Former Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray, who recently secured the Democratic nomination for Ohio governor, announced his plan to help make college more affordable in the state through the use of community colleges.

Cordray explained that while community colleges are a cheaper alternative to a four-year university, and could provide different alternatives such ask skills training, according to an article by Ben Garbarek for ABC.
From the article:
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As former head of the CFPB, Cordray is no stranger to the chaos student debt continues to cause in the housing industry, and the growing crisis.

In fact, HousingWire’s March issue outlined the long-term consequences [subscription required] of student debt on the housing economy. As it turns out, student debt is taking a much larger toll on the housing economy than previously thought.

As college becomes more expensive, less homebuyers from every generation are able to afford buying a home, and many graduates are expected to eventually default on their student loans, creating yet another obstacle for homeownership.

Source: AppraisalNewsCast, which is a real estate appraisal blog.

Opting for an online estate agent as opposed to a high street one comes with its pros and cons, but recent research suggests that sellers might be more likely to see a sale through to completion with Purplebricks.

Investec Bank has revealed through research completed by VIGA that of all the properties listed with online agent Purplebricks, 76% are successfully sold, which is higher than the UK national average. Of the remaining 24% that didn’t sell, 42% were taken off the market, while 34% were sold by another agent and 10% of sales fell through.

Purplebricks has been in the spotlight recently due to its ongoing row with investment firm Jefferies who claimed earlier this year that the agent actually sold only 51.6% of the properties that were listed in November 2016 within 10 months. However, the latest research, according to Purplebricks, proves that this accusation was false.

More Convenient For Customers

Customers saved more than £100m last year by using the Purplebricks fixed fee model instead of the commission-based rates charged by high street agents, according to the company, and the increased competition in the industry had forced high street agents to reduce their commission rates in 2014.

Lee Wainwright, UK CEO of Purplebricks, said: “It is no surprise that more and more people are turning to hybrid estate agents. The transparency, convenience and potential savings on hefty commission rates makes the decision a smart choice. The way that people buy and sell property has changed.

“People want the personal service of Local Property Experts in combination with great technology so they can transparently and conveniently interact and see everything that is happening 24/7.”

No Sale, No Fee

Another popular online estate agent, HouseSimple, has also just become a “no sale, no fee” agency and is believed to be the only one operating in this manner. The firm will now be charging sellers a fixed fee of £995 including VAT once the sale has completed.

Sam Mitchell, chief executive of HouseSimple, said: “Every single person in our organisation has a laser beam focus on selling properties. We also want to provide real clarity of proposition for our customers and believe the best way to do this is to offer one simple proposition; a No Sale No Fee service. This ensures we are completely aligned with our vendors’ objectives.”

Source: Content of this article is taken from AppraisalNewsCast, a famous real estate news blog in USA.